Article June 27, 2011 Issue

Encounters with angels

Bible accounts of angels still inspire faith today.

By Kathleen Collins

The Bible gives us wonderful stories of angels who guide and guard, praise God, open prison gates, fight holy wars, and fill the heavens with song. They appear to individuals at the crossroads of their experiences, at times of greatest need, delivering to humanity messages of God’s care. (Both the Hebrew and Greek words for angel, mal’ak and aggelos, actually mean “messenger.”) The presence of angels in the Bible  narratives, the Psalms, and the book of Revelation portrays God’s magnificence and closeness to His creation.

The first person in the Bible to meet an angel was Hagar, Sarah’s maid and the mother of Abraham’s firstborn, Ishmael. Twice in the desert, once running away and once banished, Hagar encountered the angel of God, who saved her life and the life of her son (see Gen. 16:7–14; 21:17–19). Hagar, a foreigner, a slave, and a woman, may have been at the bottom rung of ancient society, but she was precious to God and worthy of the angel message.

Though art and folk culture abound with images of winged angels with halos, in general angels in the Bible are not described in this way (cherubim and seraphim aside). The focus is on their message, not their appearance. When three men arrived at Abraham’s tent and announced that he and Sarah would have a son, Abraham didn’t know that they were angels, though he intuitively greeted them with the utmost respect and hospitality (see Gen. 18:2–15). Lot (see Gen. 19:1–14), Gideon (see Judg. 6:11–24), Manoah and his wife (see Judg. 13:3–23) also spoke with angels without realizing it, and all offered them food. The book of Hebrews exhorts, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). The New Century Version translates it this way: “Remember to welcome strangers, because some who have done this have welcomed angels without knowing it.”